


To See (More)

by enthusiasmgirl



Series: The Five Senses [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blindness, Catholic Character, Childhood Trauma, Disability, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People never understand when Matt tries to tell them that his world is on fire. It means that, as much as he can't actually see, sometimes he can see so much more than everyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Controlled Burn

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the final story in my series about each of Matt Murdock's distinct senses. This one is my attempt to really explore his sixth sense (or in his case, fifth), his radar abilities.
> 
> Fun fact, the world on fire thing is strictly from the TV series. As comic readers know, it's usually portrayed as essentially being similar to radar - a sense that is built from the way his four remaining senses interact with one another and provide him data. I get a little annoyed when I've seen people misinterpret that scene in the show as implying that he has partial sense or isn't fully visually impaired, I won't lie, because the fire is so clearly meant to be metaphorical. So I've tried to really explore both ideas here to help bridge the concepts.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Stick, Matt's whole world had exploded and he didn't think he'd survive. Now, he can control the fire and make it work for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another story about Matt and Stick, which brings with it more inappropriate language and borderline child abuse. Fun.

He breathed in deeply, his body still and calm. As he felt the air fill his lungs, he imagined in his mind's eye an aura around himself expanding to accommodate his continued existence, reacting to the strength and power of the muscles in his throat and chest as he inhaled. He breathed out, and imagined the aura shifting again, twisting and growing based on the heat, scent and motion of the carbon dioxide he released. He continued like this for a moment, breathing in and out slowly, focused, his senses sharp. A howling inferno of sensory overload roared like a fire around him, sounds and smells and sensation, but he refused to let it consume him. Instead, he pulled it into that expanding and contracting aura until it burned brightly but he was at the center of it, in control.

Finally, he stopped focusing on the breathing, and instead focused on pushing the conceptual aura he had created outwards, willing it to cascade over the objects around him, extending it until it blanketed him for miles around. The aura became a sixth sense, a distinct guide that illuminated everything in 360 degrees, the data coalescing in his imagination into a burning imprint of the world around him. The fire contained, no longer raging.

He was ready.

He sensed the kick well before it happened, the moment the other person's leg twitched a fraction of an inch upwards, and he dodged the blow to the head effortlessly, feeling his center of gravity shift with the movement. The next punch was lightning fast, but he was faster, and he blocked it with an elbow and lashed out with a punch of his own. His opponent was ready for him too and he didn't make contact. With a rustle of fabric and an exchange of body heat a leg moved to sweep his feet out from under him. He leaped up to the exact height he needed, not an inch higher than necessary, on instinct. When his feet slammed into the ground again, he kicked out towards his opponent, catching him by surprise in the stomach.

"Oof!" Matt heard, and he sensed Stick keeling over holding onto himself. He stopped and the aura faded, the darkness and din creeping back in.

"Aren't you... gonna... go for the finishing blow?" Stick asked, haltingly.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Matt said.

"See, that's your problem, kid," said Stick. "You don't have the balls to go all the way."

"I'm sorry," Matt said, feeling like a disappointment.

"It's alright," Stick said. "You'll learn. Probably the hard way."

"You mean this isn't the hard way?" Matt asked with a smirk.

"If that's what you think then you've got a long road ahead of you," said Stick. "And I don't envy it."

"I got you good, though, huh?" Matt asked.

"You did," said Stick. "I'd say you got lucky but I know that you didn't. You were quick. Quicker than me."

"I've been practicing," Matt said proudly. "Controlling the fire, just like you taught me."

"Controlling it? Awww, Matty, you missed the point, as usual," said Stick, shaking his head sadly. "I don't know why I expected any better from you."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"It's not about controlling the fire," Stick said. "It's about fanning it until it's a raging blaze straight outta hell and then stoking in the right direction so that it consumes the other guy first instead of you."

"That sounds painful," said Matt.

"It is," Stick said. "It's also necessary. You need to stop being such a goddamned pussy and jump into the flames, kid. Embrace it like it's your dead daddy and hope you live to tell the tale."

"I don't know if I can," Matt said, honestly, his voice going quiet. As he said it, he thought about the way the sidewalk scraped his knees through his jeans as he leaned over his dad's body in a dirty alley, about lying on a cold bedroom floor feeling splinters scrape his palms as he sobbed. "I don't know if I want to," he said.

"I don't know either," Stick said with a sigh. "Maybe you'll never be ready. Again."

With that, Matt posed his body in the ready position, breathing in deeply, and allowed the fire to burn again, determined.


	2. Maverick and Goose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day, and Foggy decides that it's about time Matt's superpowers got him laid. Unexpectedly, he also learns something new about Matt's world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, I cannot stop writing Matt and Foggy. And even when I deliberately go out of my way to make it non-slashy, I feel like it always leans that way. 
> 
> Oh no. I think I ship it, you guys. <3

Matt groaned as the obnoxious blaring of the alarm next to his bed woke him with an unpleasant start, the sound ricocheting around in his head and making his ears ring. He reached over to grope for the snooze button.

"Seven o'clock AM", said the robotic voice. The noise died away and slowly Matt came back to awareness, the familiar sounds of Hell's Kitchen flooding in comfortingly. He could hear his neighbor clamoring to get her children out the door and to the bus on time. They'd missed it already twice this week so far, Matt knew. All around him there were dogs barking, and eggs and bacon sizzling, buses stopping and newspapers being read. Matt took a moment to center himself by reflecting on the familiar sounds of the early morning.

Today, however, was not just any other morning. As Matt opened himself up to the universe around him, he was hit by a powerful odor of flowers, roses mostly, mixed with chocolate, and water-based lubricants, and perfume. It reminded Matt that it was Valentine's Day. It was almost enough to make Matt roll over and ignore the day in bed, but he knew that the office was calling to him. He would have to get up and face the day.

Thankfully, Karen and Foggy seemed to also be pretending it wasn't February 14th, which helped the situation. While the world outside the office engaged in it's annual celebration of all things romantic, the three of them closed the blinds and hunkered down with their newest case, defending an unlucky burglar who had accidentally stumbled upon a bloody corpse during his lesser crime and was now facing a murder charge. The work was difficult, and involved, and so Valentine's Day was forgotten about. Until, that is, they all went to leave for the night.

"Hey, buddy," Foggy asked casually once Karen had left, as they were packing up. "You going out tonight?"

Matt assumed he meant patrolling in his costume, and so he answered "I was thinking about it. Things have been quiet on the streets lately though, so I might just stay at home and wait to see if I hear anything."

"Oh, yeah," said Foggy. "Right. The whole vigilante thing. I thought you might be calling on your nurse friend tonight. For a less emergent than usual, Valentine's Day-related reason, maybe?"

"It's not like that, Foggy," Matt said. "I told you, Claire and I are just friends. And I'm not doing anything for Valentine's Day."

"Good," said Foggy, clapping his hands together enthusiastically, "Then you can come out with me for once! The Red Door is having a Valentine's Day speed dating night! That could be fun, right?"

Matt scowled at the thought. "Seriously? Speed dating? Foggy, since when is that your idea of fun?"

Foggy sighed. "Since my mom spent twenty minutes hassling me this morning about my love life, Karen gently let me down for a third time about going on a proper date, and I realized that I have no romantic prospects right now."

"What? Foggy, that's ridiculous," Matt said. "You'll meet someone. But dating a bunch of strangers on a timer? That sounds terrible."

"C'mon, man. Please?" Foggy said, "It's Valentine's Day! You're supposed to spend it with someone you love, which means you qualify even if the night's a bust. Besides, how else am I going to meet someone? At this point I'm starting to feel like there is a very strong possibility that I might die alone covered in a blanket made of cats."

Matt laughed. "You're not going to die alone, Foggy. Also, please don't get cats. I hate cats. They shed everywhere, get underfoot, and they smell awful. I could never visit you if you got cats. And given the choices I've made, I will probably also be alone if I'm around by that point, so you can take me in like a stray instead. We'll keep each other company in our old age."

"Nice," said Foggy, "If you wanted to depress me more, you have succeeded. And made me feel like I need to rescue you from that sad fate as much as myself. You're coming with me, Murdock! That is the final word on the subject. I am not taking no for an answer."

Matt gave an affectionate sigh and extended his elbow as a familiar invitation to lead the way, and Foggy took it. Together, they headed out the door towards what they both knew would be an interesting, if awful, evening of talking to desperately lonely strangers.

When they reached the Red Door, a cramped hole in the wall with low lighting and wood-paneled walls, a sign pointed them towards the speed dating on the second floor where events were normally held. They ascended the stairs and Matt's nostrils were immediately hit with the smell of several dozen bad perfumes and colognes, his ears assaulted by the buzz and hum of a large crowd of people gathered around waiting for the event to begin. He rushed as quickly as he could towards the bar and gestured to get the bartender's attention, not sure if he was noticed, as Foggy followed to join him.

"This has got to be a fire code violation," Matt yelled over the noise of the crowd. "We should leave." The bartender was too busy taking other orders. Matt hoped he got a drink soon. He suspected he was really going to need it. "I don't understand why you even wanted to do this," he told Foggy.

"Sorry," Foggy said, sincerely. "It just occurred to me that this has gotta be a little rough for you with your whole... thing. Is it bad?" He struggled with how to reference Matt's heightened senses.

"Really bad," replied Matt. "There's a lot of people here. Loud people, in a very small space, who are only going to get drunker."

"But you can focus, right? You can sense each one of them, if you wanted?" Foggy asked.

"Yeah," said Matt, realizing where his friend's line of questioning was leading. "Wait... is that why you brought me here?"

"Not entirely," said Foggy. "It's more fun to do this with you here," he said. "And I do worry about you being alone too, you know. But yeah, I may have had ulterior motives in asking you to come out with me to this. I figured I'd give you a chance to make up for all the time I've traded my friend in for Daredevil lately. Plus, I wanted to see your cool superpowers in action in a non-danger filled way. A way that gets me laid."

"Foggy..." Matt said, interrupted by the bartender making a surprise appearance. Matt ordered two beers and slid one over to Foggy while fishing the right bills out of his wallet to pay.

"Matt, please? Can you just give me this one night? Maverick and Goose, remember?" Foggy pleaded.

"You know, I still think that's a terrible comparison to make," Matt said, smiling despite himself. He sighed, but held his beer up towards Foggy in a toast. "Maverick and Goose," he agreed. They clinked their mugs together

Moments later, a woman screamed above the din of people's conversations, laying out the rules of the evening. Chairs were lined up across from one another in rows with small tables in between. Everyone would choose a chair, men in one row and women in the other. They would talk to the person across from them for five minutes, before all of the men would be instructed to move one chair down the line. At the end of the night, everyone could mingle and potentially seek out any of the other speed daters who interested them.

Matt took a seat at the opposite end of the line of chairs from Foggy at his friend's insistence. "Having you next to me will just distract me," Foggy explained. "I need to focus on my game. I just want you to do whatever it is that you do and get me as much info as you can on these ladies and what's going on with them." He put his hands on Matt's shoulders and Matt could tell that Foggy was looking him in the eyes despite his lack of sight. "My future wife could be in this group of women, Matt. The future mother of your future godchildren. Choose wisely for me, buddy."

And with that, the evening really began.

Despite Foggy's insistence that Matt not listen in on his dates, Matt couldn't help himself. He figured that the best piece of information he could give his friend about the women they were meeting was which ones were actually attracted to him. He kept his senses attuned to each woman's response to his friend, tracking their heartbeats, sweat, hormones, body heat, and general behavior. Once he determined how Foggy's date was going, he turned his attention back to the person in front of him each time, introducing himself with a smile and turning on the charm.

His own dates very quickly revealed themselves to him without his heightened senses even being necessary. Matt knew whether or not they were worth his time the moment that they realized he was blind. 

Some women were immediately not interested. Matt didn't blame them. He knew that it was a lot to ask of someone to take care of someone with a disability or who had special needs, even if he knew that he didn't personally need that level of attention and devotion. The women in front of him didn't know that, after all. It made him sad, but he understood.

Some women were repulsed by his blindness. The moment that they sat down in front of Matt, they wanted to be anywhere else because he made them uncomfortable. Those ones, he did blame. He was rude and short with them, wrote them off as ableists with no empathy, and crossed them off of Foggy's list of candidates as well.

Some women were attracted to him because of his blindness. This bothered Matt. It always had. It meant that the woman likely wanted the attention and sympathy that came with having a blind boyfriend, or that they had some romanticized notion of what a world without sight was really like. He disliked women who got excited at the thought of him touching their face to determine their beauty or who were looking for someone to take care of. He found these women to be ultimately ignorant, and altogether too full of pity for him. He was polite with these women, but they weren't what he was looking for even if they were the ones who fell the hardest for him.

Eliminating all of the women who had immediate reactions to Matt's lack of sight left him with only a few real prospects from the long line of people he met. These were the women who cracked self-deprecating jokes about their own beauty because they knew that Matt wouldn't care. Who said what was on their mind and asked forthright questions to Matt about what his life was like if they were curious. And who didn't try to help him without his permission, and respected his independence. Matt made a note of these women and resolved to seek them out later and get to know them better.

Throughout each date, he made sure to ask pointed questions geared towards gathering the most information possible about each woman, especially relative to what he knew were Foggy's interests and needs. What was their favourite movie? Did they read the latest news story about global warming or gay marriage? What was their favourite restaurant in the city? He paid attention to their responses and tried to get a read on each one. 

Finally, the line reached its starting point again and the speed dating portion of the evening ended.

Matt made his way over to a back booth where Foggy was waiting for him, and slid in across from his friends, beers in hand.

"Alright, Matt," Foggy said. "Let's compare notes! You first. Any women you're interested in? Any women you're thinking I should be interested in?"

Matt laughed. "Well, who I'm interested in doesn't matter, because I'm only really here for you. So, give me some names and I'll tell you what I thought of them."

"Okay," said Foggy. "Angela?" he asked. "She's a model. She's clearly got money and is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen."

Matt reflected on the fact that many of Foggy's problems with women stemmed from the fact that he was always attracted to the wrong ones. "She says she's a model, but she's not a successful one," Matt said. "She lied as she described her career in a way that suggested that she's probably five minutes away from getting on a bus back to her hometown or ending up in pornography. The desperation rolled off of her in waves. Her dress and perfume were expensive, but she was nursing a glass of what I can only assume is the cheapest alcohol on the menu and wearing shoes that I could tell were super-glued recently, which tells me that she's probably broke and someone else probably paid for the expensive items she wore. Conclusion: she's probably a gold-digger who was only into you because you told her you were a lawyer. Sorry, buddy."

"Wow," said Foggy. "Impressive, and also extraordinarily valuable to me to know. Let's see... Leslie? She's a pediatrician, which means she's smart and good with kids."

"It's a good thing she is," said Matt, "because she's also pregnant right now. It made it awkward when I tried to get her drink away from her without telling her."

"Are you serious?" Foggy asked.

"Yes," Matt replied. "I could smell the altered hormones and sense the second heartbeat."

Foggy didn't say anything in response to that, and Matt wasn't sure whether that fact should unnerve him or not. "Jane," Foggy finally asked. "She's into good music, and I'm into the whole goth look."

"She's also not into you at all, unfortunately," Matt said as gently as he could. "Or me. Maybe not men, even. The only person I sensed her get aroused or excited by was Angela from across the room."

"Wow," said Foggy again. "I mean... just wow, Matt." Matt wasn't sure how to take that.

"Do you want my opinion?" asked Matt.

"You know I do. It's why I brought you here," Foggy said.

Matt thought for a moment on all the women he had met. "Ellie," he finally said. "The doctoral student who snorts when she laughs."

"Huh," said Foggy, thinking about it. "Really?"

"You didn't like her?" asked Matt. "She really liked you."

"She did?" Foggy said. "I don't know. I mean, she's wearing a knitted hat with an image of a bird on it. She brought a huge messenger bag full of school books with her to the bar. Covered in buttons with political slogans. She's a little intense, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Matt said, "I couldn't see any of the things you just described. But I do know that she was a great conversationalist. She was passionate and intelligent. She wasn't wearing too much make-up or perfume like a lot of the other women here, which means that she isn't afraid to be herself. And she reminded me of you in a lot of ways."

"How?" Foggy asked, curious.

"She was genuine," Matt said, "Everything she said was the truth, even if it meant that sometimes she came across as bold or blunt. Her favourite food is Indian, just like you. She loves Star Wars, and collects vinyl records the same obsessive way you collect fantasy novels."

"No offense, Matt," Foggy said, "But it sounds like maybe you like her."

"I do," said Matt, "But mostly because she immediately fell for you and wasn't into me at all. Just think about it."

"I will," Foggy said, seeking Ellie out at the other end of the bar and observing her through new eyes. "How do you do it?" he asked Matt.

"Do what?" Matt asked, surprised by the question.

"Walk around knowing all of that stuff about everyone you meet within minutes of meeting them," Foggy said. "You figured out stuff about these women that they may not even know about themselves. Without even trying. That's insanity."

Matt shrugged. "You asked me to do what I do," he said.

"Well yeah," Foggy said, "But you made it sound like it was just heartbeats and lying, or like you had to really focus to do it. But it's your life. It's all the time. And there are so many people in this city."

"There are," Matt said. "It's why I put the suit on, Foggy. There are millions of people in this city, each living in their own little secret world. People being born, people falling in love, people dying. Everyone has their own doubts and hopes and fears and dreams. Hell's Kitchen alone teems with life. It's happening every day, all around us. I can't escape it. So I protect it. Someone has to."

"Who looks out for you, though?" Foggy asked. "Who knows your secret world?"

"You do," said Matt. "Why do you think I'm here?"

The pair sat for a moment, lost in thought and finishing their beers. Finally, Foggy stood up. "Well," he said, placing his empty beer mug on the table. "Time to go meet your possible future friend-in-law," he said.


	3. Masochism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire understands that Matt sees differently than other people, but she's really curious how he heals differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Claire finally makes an appearance. Because I couldn't leave her out.

"Ngggghh," Matt groaned softly as his senses were once again flooded by the world around him, awareness finally creeping back in. He was on his couch in his apartment. He didn't remember how he'd gotten there.

"You lawyers are so eloquent," a voice said teasingly, and Matt recognized both the sound and the shape looming over him as Claire immediately. She was familiar, and he was comforted by her presence despite the pain he was in. "Although," she said, "I'm really just happy to hear you speak again at all after the shape you were in when I got here."

"That bad?" Matt asked, his brain desperately trying to form a memory of the night before.

"For you? Not really," she said. "For a sane person who doesn't spend their off hours leaping from roof to roof brandishing billy clubs and hunting criminals? That's another story."

Matt groaned again and tried to sit up, panting and shaking with the effort, but Claire put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back down. "No," she said. "You're not going anywhere. I'd say not for at least a day, but I've seen the way you heal. You still need to take it easy though."

"I'll be fine," Matt said, but he stayed lying down trying to pretend that his head wasn't spinning and his entire body didn't ache.

"Yeah," said Claire, "You will. It occurs to me that you've never really explained to me why that is."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"I mean that there are a lot of sick people down at my hospital who could really benefit from whatever weird ninja voodoo you work on yourself that makes you not die," she answered.

"It's just meditation," Matt told her, "Like I said."

"No," said Claire. "Not acceptable. Tell me more. I want to know."

Matt struggled for a moment, as he usually did when it came to his heightened senses, with how to explain it in a way that a sighted person could understand.

"Do you remember what I told you?" he asked, finally. "About the world being on fire?"

"How could I forget?" she said. "It's not exactly something you hear everyday."

"Well," he confessed, "There's more to it than what I said."

"Go on," she encouraged.

"The fire is a metaphor, obviously. Taught to me by my mentor, a man named Stick. But it's a good one. I live in a world that is constantly assaulting me with information, with sounds and smells and so many things, has been since the day I woke up in the hospital after my accident. It was always overwhelming and confusing, but it got worse after my dad died, I couldn't make any of it make sense. It was unrelenting. It felt like a firestorm. It felt like what I had always imagined when I listened to the priest deliver his sermons on sin. Like hell.

Claire listened patiently, reaching out absentmindedly to stroke Matt's face and comfort him as he spoke.

"Stick showed me that through meditation, through careful focus and attention, I could conceptualize all of the sensory data I was exposed to in a new way, put it all together to form a picture of the world around me, like radar. I could take everything I could sense and twist it in my favour, make the fire and flames work for me, control it. Once I realized that, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. One where I wanted to feel everything instead of block it out, because the more I felt, the more fuel the fire had, and the stronger I was."

"And the pain?" asked Claire, "It fuels the fire?"

"Like nothing else," said Matt. "It brings a sort of clarity, a zen that I can't really describe. The pain takes me outside of my own body to a place where I can feel absolutely everything, every wound. I get to a level of body awareness where the pain no longer exists, where I no longer exist. Where I'm just cuts and bruises and flesh. And then I can will myself to heal, feel skin knitting back together and bruises fading, and get back up. Does that make any sense?"

"No," said Claire, "It really doesn't. But then nothing about you does."

"I'm sorry," said Matt. "I know you were looking for a more concrete answer to your question. Something that you could take with you when you leave here to help people who need it."

Claire laughed gently. "Yeah, somehow I don't think 'Deliberately put yourself in enough pain that you have an out of body experience' is really going to go down too well in the emergency room. In fact, I think if I suggested masochism as a healing option, I would be fired."

"Is that what it sounds like?" Matt asked. "Masochism?"

"Yeah, Matt," said Claire. "It is. But then I'm not surprised. All that Catholic guilt's done a number on you."

They sat there for a moment, each contemplating their own thoughts, Matt's breathing heavy and labored.

"Claire," Matt finally asked. "Will you stay for awhile?"

"Sure," said Claire, "Somebody's gotta keep you out of trouble, since you won't do it yourself."

After a few moments, Claire sensed his breathing even out and knew that he had passed out again. She stayed anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a Tumblr. You can find it at http://enthusiasmgirl.tumblr.com. If you have prompts for me, I highly encourage you to leave them in my ask box there! You never know what will happen. I might get inspired. :D


End file.
